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WHEN CONNECTICUT 
STOPPED THE HUN 



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BATTLE OF SEICHEPREY 

APRIL 20-21, 1918 



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FROM THE OFFICIAL STORY AS TOLD BY 
GEN. CLARENCE R. EDWARDS 
COMMANDER OF THE 26th 
(YANKEE) DIVISION 



Copyright, 1919, by 
AUGUSTIN F. MAHER 



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Press of S. Z. Field, New Haven, Conn, 



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HOW CONNECTICUT STOPPED 
THE HUN 

By AUGUSTIN F. MAHER 



This is the official story of the first attack by the Germans 
in force against American troops. . The old Connecticut 
National Guard, the 102nd Regiment, met the attack and de- 
feated the Huns. 

The story was told to the writer by Gen. Clarence R. 
Edwards, Commander of the 26th Division, and his Aide, 
Major John H. Hyatt. 



Midnight at Seicheprey on April 20, 1918, in the front line trench 
called the Sybil trench, were 350 Connecticut boys— seven platoons of 
the 102nd Regiment with members of the 102nd Machine Gun Battal- 
lion. They were sacrifice detachments. The reserves a mile and 
a quarter behind had orders not to go to their support. The rain was 
falling in a soft, cold, disheartening, discouraging shower — the kmd of 
rain that spatters 'ere it falls and makes a fog almost impenetrable. 
All but the sentries were asleep. 

To the north stretched No Man's Land— that piece of ground sepa- 
rating- the trenches of the Connecticut boys from the wire and the 
trenches of the Hun. 

At 2 o'clock the silence and the gloom were rent by the roar of the 
German artillery far to the north of No Man's Land. In an instant 
the space intervening between the Sybil trench and the rear areas be- 
hind the town of Seicheprey, where the remainder of the Connecticut 
Regiment was held in reserve, was an exploding inferno. So accu- 
rately placed were the shells of the enemy that scarcely a foot of the 
mile and a quarter stretch to the second line trench was untouched. 
High explosive shells, shrapnel and gas shells fell with regular intervals 
while above the inferno floated the deadly fumes of mustard gas which 
burned when it touched. 

The seven platoons in the Sybil trench were as effectually cut off 
from all help and all assistance as though the ocean divided them from 
their reserves. They were awake, for the roar of the German guns 
had banished sleep. 

Out of Richecourt, the nearest town on the northwest held by the 
Germans, filed eighteen hundred German shock troops, picked from the 
forces in the north for the purpose of teaching the Yankee his first 
lesson in the World War. To the northeast, through Remieres Woods, 



came fifteen hundred more of the same, picked troops. The two forces 
aimed for the ends of the Sybil trench, and as they came through the 
German wire they picked up the German forces in the Hun trenches. 

The noise of their advance was smothered by the chorus of the 
guns behind them and the shells far in front of them, while the Con- 
necticut boys in the trenches waited for that which they knew must be 
coming. The force advancing from Richecourt cut the American wire 
at the west end of the Sybil trench and crossed beyond the trench, 
killing or capturing the Americans whom they found. The force 
advancing from Remieres Wood did the same, and shortly after 4 o'clock 
the seven platoons of Connecticut guardsmen were surrounded on all 
sides by over 3,500 German troops. 

When the Germans had crossed the American trench they met 
behind it and then advanced upon the trench. Armed with rifles, 
bombs, hand grenades, knives and infernal machines, the Huns threw 
themselves on the boys from Connecticut. The boys from Connecticut 
had no chance in that black hell, but they fought and they died and they 
killed until they were all — all but a few — dead or wounded or disarmed 
or captured. 

And that was the beginning of the battle of Seicheprey. 

"They intended to crucify us," General Clarence R. Edwards, com- 
mander of the 26th Division, said. "The_v wanted to put the iron into 
our souls and show us that we couldn't fight in this war in which they 
had been so long triumphant. 

"And I want to say right now, and I want the people of Connecti- 
cut to appreciate it, for I am mighty glad that they are interested in 
their boys, that no regiment in the American Expeditionary Force in 
France has a better record than the 102nd Regiment, which was made 
up of the old Connecticut National Guard. 

The battle of Seicheprey was the first effort of the Huns to try out 
the American troops. There had been artillery duels and there had 
been trench raids in which the American troops had taken part, but 
up to the 20th of April, the Huns had not had a chance to test the 
metal of the American fighter. 

The 26th Division had been shifted from the Chemin des Dames to 
the sector of which Seicheprey was a part, a few weeks before. When 
the Germans had struck the French line at San Ouentin on March 21 
and had gone through for 18 miles, they had created a situation which 
demanded the presence on the battered French front of every French 
soldier available. So the French commanders stripped their lines as 
much as they dared. They took from the line east of Rheims as many 
French soldiers as they could and the 26th Division of the United States 
army was one of the first to be ordered to take the place of the French 
divisions thus transferred to the north. 

The French line of defense even prior to the attack of the Germans 
on March 21 was thin enough, but when the withdrawals to reinforce 
the northern armies came, the lines that were left were mere skeletons. 
The 26th Division was called upon to take and hold a sector which had 
been thinly held by one and a half French divisions, and the German 



bureau of intelligence at that time seemed to be able to find out every- 
thing and anything that the French were doing. That perhaps is the 
reason why they selected Seicheprey as the point of attack, for the}' 
knew that the Yankee division which had been placed in there must 
stretch its men considerabh' to fill out the gaps caused by the with- 
drawal from the same sector of one and a half French divisions. 

The Americans suspected something, however, because, for nearly 
four weeks prior to the attack there had been evidence of a concentra- 
tion of German artillery in front of Seicheprey. But no attack had 
come and the days and nights had become simply ones of watching and 
waiting for that which they expected might happen. In the tactical 
assignments of the troops the French method of defence was adopted. 
For four years the French had placed in the front line trenches men 
who were ordered to stay and die or to fight until they were disarmed. 
Such men knew that in case of an attack they could not expect help 
from the reserves because the German barrage usually was of such 
frightful intensity that nothing could live in the space between the 
sacrifice trench and the reserve positions. 

Thus the usual method of attack and defense was that the Germans 
would attack the first line trench and the first line trench would defend 
as long as it could. If the attack was in sufficient force the men in the 
front line trenches were sacrificed and the enemy went on the second 
line trench, where a greater force was held in reserve and where the 
resistance would be correspondingh' greater. 

Thus it was at Seicheprey. On that particular night seven platoons 
consisting of 50 men each, had been assigned to the Sjd^il trench — the 
place of sacrifice. They were taken from different companies of the 
102nd and the Machine Gun battalion. In reserve, a mile and a quarter 
to a mile and a half back and south of the town of Seicheprey were more 
platoons and further back the remaining platoons of the 102nd Regiment. 
There are 48 platoons in a regiment. 

A few miles to the rear of this supporting line of trenches was 
Beaumont, the regimental headquarters. Slightly to the southeast was 
the town of Mandres, also occupied by troops of the 26th Division. And 
still further to the southeast was Ansanville, the brigade headquarters. 
Between Seicheprey and Mandres most of the 26th Division artillery 
was established. 

According to General Edwards and Major Hyatt, his aide-de-camp, 
the night of April 19-20 was as miserable a night as they make in 
France — and there are miserable nights — weatherwise — in France. It 
rained all night and with the rain was a fog which could be cut with a 
knife. It was the night for which the Germans had been waiting. 
And when the regimental brigade and division headquarters in the early 
morning heard the roar of the German guns, they suspected the attack 
was coming although a few days before a five-day artillery fight, in 
which the 104th Regiment, on the other end of the line had figured, 
closed without having brought an attack by the infantry. The 104th is 
a Springfield, Mass., regiment. 



This bombardment, however, was far more intense than any pre- 
vious artillery fire by the enemy on the American line and the whole 
area back of Seicheprey as far as Mandres and beyond was drenched in 
a death-dealing shower of shells and gas. Men were killed even to the 
south of Beaumont. 

To the men in the Sybil trench, however, there was nothing to do 
but wait. And the first they knew that the infantry attack was on was 
when the Germans swarmed over and into the trenches and the dugouts. 

There are not very many men who came back from that trench. 
The odds were 350 to 3,500 but the Connecticut boys gave all they re- 
ceived and more. It was a fight with bayonets, with clubs and rifles, 
with fists, with bare hands, until by sheer force of numbers, the Con- 
necticut boys were overwhelmed and those who escaped from the trench 
were those whom the Germans overlooked in the dark. 

The Sybil trench at Seicheprey was a bloody trench when the Ger- 
mans in their haste to advance upon the second line of trenches, gave 
the signal to their artillery in the rear to lift the barrage so they could 
advance upon Seicheprey. Probably not more than 30 men out of the 
350 who had been in the trench returned to the American lines. Lieu- 
tenant Lockhart of New Haven, who was in command of one of the 
platoons, came back with eight men. He saluted Colonel Parker when 
he reached headquarters, apologized for not being shaved, and when 
asked where his men were, he replied with a choke in his voice : 

"Sir, they are out there where you put them." 

It was the same Lieutenant Lockhart who afterwards confessed 
to his superior that during that fight in the trench, he was afraid, and 
ashamed lest his men might know that he was afraid. In the dark- 
ness, in the confusion and the hell, he lost touch with the platoon to his 
right. His orders were to keep in liaison — in touch — with the platoons 
on his right and left. Not knowing of course, what was happening in 
other parts of the trench except by what was happening to himself, he 
decided to carry out his orders and he crawled out of the trench, and, on 
'his belly, made his way to the west to get in touch with the next 
platoon. Suddenly in the darkness, and with the roar of the fight 
around and overhead, he touched something alive. And in front of him 
in the flash of a shell, he saw a German apparently ready to shoot. 

Then it was that he was afraid and for a moment his faculties 
were numb. He waited and waited for the German to fire and the 
German didn't fire. Then his courage returned and pulling his own 
pistol, he yelled, "Surrender !" There was no answer from the German 
and his nerves were almost at the breaking point when another flash 
lighted up the scene and revealed his opponent as a German, but a dead 
German. 

He continued on and he found the bodies of ten dead Germans 
within a very short area. To show that there is no accurate method of 
knowing the German casualties in that battle, many hours later — the 
next morning — when the American swept over that same spot, beating 
the Hun back to his own lines, there were no bodies in that particular 
place. 



In that trench, 150 boys were disarmed and captnred by the Huns. 
But Major Hyatt told me a story of the grim determination of those 
lads which has never been told before in the United States. When the 
Germans were driven out of the Sybil trench the next morning, these 
prisoners were taken north through Remieres Woods under guard. 
Suddenly they turned upon their guards, beat them over the heads -with 
their fists and with anything they could get hold of and made desperate 
attempts to escape. Some were bayoneted, some were shot down — a 
few escaped. Three times on that journey through the Remieres 
Woods, those 102nd Regiment boys fought their captors in their wild 
and desperate efifort to break away and get back to the American line. 
And in each of the attempts some of them died. 

Major Hyatt told me of Captain Bissell of the 102nd, who was one 
of the prisoners. He succeeded in escaping but while making his way 
back to the lines a shell exploded near him and he was hurled forty feet 
by the concussion. And when he got back to the lines he was sent to 
the hospital for shell shock and wounds. 

When the Germans had cleaned out as they thought, all of the men 
in the Sybil trench, they started, still in the darkness, for the town of 
Seicheprey. Seicheprey is a little village which before the war had 
held some 150 to 200 inhabitants, with a few dozen buildings. On April 
20, some of those buildings were still standing, and on April 21 jione of 
them was standing. Across the open space between the trench in 
the rain and the fog and the mist in the darkness, charged the advanc- 
ing German shock troops. On the right back of the town of Seiche- 
prey, Major Rau, commanding the first line of reserves, had already 
organized a counter-attack, after hearing the noise of the conflict in the 
Sybil trench. 

The German picked shock troops and the boys from Connecticut 
met in the center of the town. Rifles were abandoned except to be 
used as clubs, while hand grenades and bombs and knives did their 
deadly work in a hand to hand encounter. On either side of the town 
of Seicheprey itself the 102d machine gunners were playing their deadly 
hail into the advancing German ranks. No man who was in that fight 
in the town of Seicheprey any more than he who was in the Sybil trench 
will ever forget that hour which made Seicheprey famous. 

The chosen troops of the Kaiser, chosen to teach the cannon-fodder 
from America that it knew nothing of war, remained in the town of 
Seicheprey not more than fifteen minutes on that black morning of 
April 20. And they were glad — mighty glad — to test their running 
powers back to the Sybil trench, which they had captured an hour be- 
'fore, and their hurry was such that they didn't even take their dead 
with them. It was a fight of man to man and although the Americans 
were outnumbered in Seicheprey they drove the Kaiser's best back in 
rout and disorder. 

Major Hyatt told me of the cook of the Second Regiment who was 
in Seicheprey. One of the advancing Huns, armed with a flame thrower, 
threw his flame into the cook's kitchen where the cook was getting 
breakfast. Breakfast no longer had attractions for the cook, who, 



grabbing- a butcher knife from his block, rushed into the street and with 
yells of rage and triumph, joined in the hand-to-hand melee in which 
the Germans were fast getting the worst of it. 

Beaten back from the town of Seicheprey, the Germans sought the 
safety of the Sybil trench, filled with American and German dead. Then 
the German artillery returned to the attack and all day long they poured 
all varieties of shells in anger and fury on the town of Seicheprey, on 
the ground between Seicheprey and the Sybil trench and on the areas 
back to and beyond Beaumont. 

But the Americans were mad. The Connecticut boys had been 
struck and struck hard. There were reports that some of the boys in 
the Sybil trench and some of the- prisoners had been mutilated by the 
Germans. They wanted revenge and they wanted it quick. So while 
the German artillery roared and chorused all day long, General Edwards 
and his staff were busy preparing for the counter-attack. And in the 
morning, under cover of their own barrage, the forces of the 26th 
Division, led by the Connecticut troops, filed down from the ridge behind 
Seicheprey and with a yell on their lips they struck the clear space be- 
tween Seicheprey and the Sybil .trench. There was one thought, and 
one thought only: they wanted revenge for the morning before and 
the whole of the Kaiser's army couldn't stiip them. 

The Germans in the Sybil trench used machine guns and rifles on 
the advancing Americans while the German artillery in the rear sprayed 
the ground with gas and high explosives. But there was no stopping 
this time. The American forces crossed the intervening mile and a 
quarter space and were upon the Germans occupying the old American 
trench. They took sweet revenge for the morning before, but the 
Germans didn't wait to be exterminated, as they would have been, for 
they fled out of the trench and across No Man's Land and beyond their 
own wire. 

And thus the picked troops of Hunland. chosen to teach the Amer- 
ican army its first great lesson, after twenty-six hours of fighting, were 
back where they came from, and out of thirty-five hundred German 
troops engaged, between twelve and fifteen hundred were wounded, 
while the American casualties were something over six hundred. 

And Hindenberg had learned the lesson which he was to learn with 
greater force within the next succeeding months — that American sol- 
diers couldn't be frightened, and couldn't be terrorized and that they 
could fight. 

Both General Edwards and Major Hyatt speak in particular of the 
crew of one machine gun. They seem to believe that the story of that 
machine gun crew typifies the spirit of the American Army as it typifies 
the spirit of Connecticut. When the battle was over and when the 
Germans had been driven back to their own lines the Americans went 
out seeking their own dead and wounded and they found this particular 
gun crew. It was part of the 102d Machine Gun Battalion. 

The gun was where it had stood in the fight. Across the body of the 
gun was draped the lifeless form of a Connecticut gunner. On the 
tripod and with his hands still on the trigger was another Connecticut 



g'unner, dead. The other members of the gun crew were on the ground 
beside the gun, dead. In front of the gun, for thirty yards, were piles 
of dead Germans. The crew had died where they fought, and the gun 
and the dead Germans were evidence that they had not lost the fight. 

In the rain and the fog and the smoke and the gas of that frightful 
hour in the trench, there was a corporal. His name was not remem- 
bered by General Edwards nor Major Hyatt. He was in charge of a 
number of men and directing their fire. He was unable to see from 
the position which he occupied and he climbed out, in the murk, and 
climbed upon a tree stump where he was a target for everything of 
destruction that night, and from that point of vantage he directed his 
men. 

Or the stor}'- of the two boys wdio were chosen to carry a message 
to Regimental Headquarters. It is the custom under such circum- 
stances, in the dark to run Indian file, with the hand of one upon the 
shoulder or coat of the other in order not to lose touch. These two 
boys started for Regimental Headquarters and before they had gone 
many yards the boy in front was struck down, killed. And the other 
boy, reaching into the pocket of his companion, took the message from 
his pocket and in the darkness he went on, somehow, escaping in a 
place in which escape was a miracle and reached headquarters with the 
message. 

Major Hyatt told me that in the first part of that fight the fire of the 
artillery was such that almost every man who attempted to carry a 
message to the rear, not only from the Sybil trench, but from the re- 
serve trench on the right south of Seicheprey, was killed in the attempt. 

When the casualties were figured out by General Edwards and his 
staff it was found that eighty men of the 102d had been killed, a hun- 
dred and fifty taken prisoners and about four hundred were wounded 
and gassed. The gas casualties, many of them, were caused during 
the day when the Germans drenched the rear areas with their shells. 

On April 21 the Americans buried one hundred and sixty-five dead 
Germans, and it is known that many German dead bodies were carried 
away by the Huns in their retreat. From the prisoners taken later. 
General Edwards says that he is certain the German casualties of the 
day were between twelve and fifteen hundred men. Thus, although 
the German troops were superior in numbers, and although they out- 
gunned the American artillery two to one, their casualties were double 
the number of the American casualties. 

The Americans captured in the battle eleven machine guns, a large 
quantity of ammunition, telephones which the Germans had brought 
along with them for field service, and quite a large amount of other 
supplies. The 102d lost only one machine gun and four or five machine 
guns were rendered useless. 

The Americans took just one prisoner that day. That seems 
strange and an unspoken query was met by a grim and forceful state- 
ment from General Edwards : "You know," he said, "stories reached 
us that day that some of the Connecticut boys in the trench and some 
of the prisoners, had been mutilated by the Germans. I was never 



able to confirm any of such stories which were reported to me, but the 
stories persisted and the boys believed them. Perhaps that is the reason 
why the 102d did not take prisoners." 

To get some idea of the ground which the 26th Division was com- 
pelled to cover when it took over the Seicheprey section, General 
Edwards said that his front extended for 18 and a half kilometers, be- 
tween 11 and 12 miles. That means that of the entire division there 
would be less than twenty-five hundred men to a mile, and as onlj' about 
a seventh of the inen were in the front line trenches, it would mean that 
three hundred and fifty men would be called upon the front line trench 
to cover a distance of nearly a mile. That gives some idea of the 
thinness of the line which the Germans struck on that morning of 
April 20. 

He told me of the topographical layout of the ground in front of 
Seicheprey and Richecourt, which was to the northwest of Seicheprey 
and of the American trench, and was the first town beyond the American 
line held by the Germans. That was the town from which half of the 
Germon troops advanced on the morning of April 20. On the right, to 
the northeast, was Remieres Woods and on the left of that and to the 
north was the famous Apremont or Bois Breuilles, which was later made 
famous in the advance along the Meuse. Between Apremont and the 
Bois Breuilles, is the valley of the Vir, which is nothing but a marsh. 
It was through the ravine bordering that marsh that the Germans troops 
came from Remieres Woods when they turned the flank of the Sybil 
trench. Across No Man's Land, directly in front of the Sybil trench 
was open ground with the German wire, the German first line trench 
and the system of supporting trenches. Richecourt had been badly 
battered in the inany attacks in that sector. 

General Edwards, in speaking of the work of the 102d Regiment, 
said : "If I were put on oath as to which was the first and best of my 
regiments I could not say, because each had its own special line of 
endeavor and achievement which was not equalled by the work of an- 
other in that particular line. The record in the war has been such that 
all of them did gloriously. But I will say this, and I say it without 
fear of contradiction, that no regiment in the whole American Expedi- 
tionary Force had a better record than the 102d. 

"In the battle of Seicheprey these young lads were led by platoons, 
by their lieutenants. The captains were in the rear of their companies, 
and in that battle in which they received their- introduction to the 
World War, and in all the other battles in which they took part, not a 
man quailed, no matter what the situation was. They stood up to their 
duty and even in the thickest of the fight, when the odds seemed to be 
death or capture, not one of them asked to be relieved and none of them 
would be relieved, until the order came from the commandina: officers." 






RD-75. 











S. Z. POLI 






was the only theatre man- 






ager in the country who 






kept the public informed, 






through a war lecturer, of 






the doings of the boys in 






France. 






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